New for the 2011-2012 seasons, the America East Daily Word, a collaboration between d against Albany.AmericaEast.com and AExtra, will recap the previous day's games and on goings on our nine campuses and provide links to recaps, previews, features and exclusive coverage.

The New Hampshire volleyball team's official Twitter page (@UNHVOLLEYBALL) said it best today: "Conference play starts tomorrow... NOW is the time!!!..."

For some schools America East play begins tomorrow and for others it starts today as we kick off yet another exciting weekend of fall sports action on this, the first official day of fall.

We'll start first, with volleyball.  Stony Brook travels to UMBC for the first America East Conference game of any sport in 2011.  The Seawolves hold the all-time series advantage against the Retrievers 8-7 and have won the last three matches.  New Hampshire opens the conference slate on Saturday against the "soaring" Hartford Hawks and Albany travels to Binghamton to take on the Bearcats.

Women's soccer also cracks into its conference schedule this weekend with six squads taking on familiar foes.  Vermont is the only women's squad with multiples games traveling to Holy Cross this evening before heading back to Burlington for a date with Stony Brook on Sunday.  League-leading Hartford will receive its first conference test against UMBC while Boston U. will head west on I-90 to take on Albany.  Binghamton and Maine square off in Orono and New Hampshire closes the non-conference portion of its schedule at Harvard.

For more of the Daily Word, check out the AExtra blog.